Fallen Warrior
by Elialys
Summary: Post 4x10 and 4x12 story. When Nina's deception is revealed, Olivia's abilities come into play again, while memories she shouldn't have keep on resurfacing. PO hurt/comfort. Part 2/2 rated M. NOW COMPLETE
1. Fallen Warrior, Part 1

**Disclaimer: **Still not owning anything beside a masochist muse.

**Spoilers**: All the way up to 4x12_ 'Welcome to Westfield'_

**Rating:** M for the second part.

**A/N: **I think you should all know that I just did a very graceful victory dance upon realizing that ffnet was working again. I've been waiting for over four hours to post this. Oh the frustration this website puts me through I swear.

So, you could call this a post '_Welcome to Westfield'_ story, even though I really wrote most of it after 4x10 '_Forced Perspective_'. The whole Olivia/Nina situation really got to me, so I started this, needing to write some Olivia!whump and P/O hurt/comfort, and never finished it. The newest episode made me go back to it (and not just because of ze sex XD). It's still completely off canon, though, because I'm ignoring the last scene of 4x12 (despite its awesomeness, feels good to be right!), as well as the promo for 4x13, or I would have had to rewrite the entire thing (again). But reading this, you'll see that I'm really _not_ ignoring the episode either :p

This story is complete, but huge, so I'm posting it in two parts. The rest shall come tomorrow, or Tuesday, because it needs editing. It's also unbetaed, so I apologize about that!

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><p><strong>FALLEN WARRIOR<strong>

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><p><strong>PART 12**

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><p>To anyone else witnessing the scene, Olivia indubitably looks like a startling and worrying mess as she enters the interrogation room.<p>

To Peter, standing tense and quiet on the other side of the two-way mirror, she looks like a fallen warrior.

The blood is without a doubt the worst of it. Her shirt, which was still white a few hours ago, is now imbued with dirt, result of all the violent wrestling she's been part of, today, furthermore explaining the two ripped buttons at the bottom of it. Most of its front is also splattered with crimson, the color of a blood that has now almost completely dried up. Even from this distance, he knows that it has formed a thin layer on her skin as well, over her collarbone in particular, where her shirt is never completely buttoned up. Her hair is hardly maintained in what remains of her bun, a few long strands having completely escaped from it to frame her face, adding to her disheveled look.

And of course, there is this ugly gash on her cheekbone, still slowly oozing thick liquid down her cheek, along with the few complimentary bruises and cuts scattered all over the pale skin of her face.

No, the blood isn't the worst of it, Peter corrects himself inwardly. Her eyes, and the look on that wounded face of hers, they are the worst of it. He wishes he could say he hadn't expected her to come into the room, but he knows better.

Some things never change.

Another thing that will never change is his instantaneous desire to join her in there, to try and take her away maybe, in the pointless hope that it might spare her some additional pain. He's not even going to try, though.

She came into that room for a reason, and no one but herself will make her pass that door again.

Peter can tell that the exact same reasoning goes through Broyles's mind, as he stares at his agent from where he sits at the table. A few moments ago, he had been telling Nina Sharp that the fact that they didn't have enough evidence to keep her in the building wouldn't stop him from trying. And up until then, Nina had been as composed as ever, sitting straight on her chair, gloved hands calmly splayed over the table in front of her.

When Peter's eyes briefly dart away from Olivia to scan Broyles' face, then Nina's, he can already tell the difference. The two men had expected present company. Nina, for some reason, had not. And the look of genuine worry and mixed emotions that crosses the old woman's face as she stares at Olivia's sad state only makes Peter angrier.

She has _no right_ to display these signs anymore, these signs that she cares.

Peter breathes in and out slowly, deeply; his arms tightly crossed in front his chest as he stares at the scene, he's doing his best to keep his own emotions under control.

Olivia and Broyles exchange a look full of unspoken words. She doesn't even need to ask him to leave the room; he stands up on his own, throws another glare at Nina, before going for the door. As he passes Olivia, he bows his head down to whisper something close to her ear.

Peter can't hear what he has said, but Olivia nods shortly, almost imperceptibly, answering a low "That's more than I need," leading Peter to think that she was just given no more than five to ten minutes with that woman who wasn't even their prisoner.

When Broyles closes the door behind him, the two women end up alone in the room, entering the most intense staring contest Peter has ever witnessed, the air charged with too many unspeakable words.

Mostly, it's charged with betrayal.

Again, to anyone else, Olivia might have looked almost impassive at that instant, maybe too drained from her obviously rocky day to be able to display any kind of emotion. And again, Peter knows better.

He stares, too, stares at her face, and he sees it all.

He's only faintly surprised when Nina is the first to speak. "Are you badly hurt?" Her voice is soft, quiet.

Olivia blinks, and shakes her head slowly, never taking her eyes away from Nina's face. "Most of this blood isn't mine. I'm pretty sure you've guessed whose it is by now, if one of your minions haven't found a way to inform you yet."

"It is Jones's, I presume," Nina answers, almost conversationally.

Maybe it's the mention of the man she's killed rather gruesomely only a while ago that sets Olivia into motion; because she moves, then, walking toward the table. "Yeah," she says, bluntly, both her hands coming up to grab the back of the chair. "Turns out he's not that invincible after all."

"You should get that cut checked," Nina points out with a tilt of her head, her worry adding more creases to her wrinkly face. "_That_ is definitely your blood."

Olivia shrugs. The gesture is stiff, almost forced, as is this whole conversation. "Nothing but a little souvenir from one his Shapeshifters."

A shapeshifter who had ended up with a bullet in his head only a few seconds later. Peter had made sure of that.

He remembers the sudden and intense surge of adrenaline that had flooded into a blood already overflowing with said hormone, when he had seen the man about to dig his makeshift knife into Olivia's back, who had still been disoriented on the ground; he remembers aiming with a furious focus that had darkened his peripheral vision, and pulling the trigger with a rush of familiar, sinister satisfaction. He also remembers seeing a couple of paramedics attempting to tend Olivia's wound in the aftermath of it all, but he had been too busy trying to calm Walter down at the time to make his way to them so he could force her to stay still while they stitched her up, maybe.

The old man is now back at the lab, heavily sedated for the next twelve hours at least, while Olivia stands here in that interrogation room, painfully battered up and still oozing blood and regrets.

"Olive…" Nina begins, but Olivia's aggressive reaction instantly stops her, as she uses her grip on the chair to lift it up and slam it back down on the ground, the metal scratching the floor in a loud, unnerving sound.

"Don't." Her voice is throaty, now, and her mask of impassibility is crumbling at the seams. "Don't call me that, ever again."

Nina has lost some of her composure, too, having slumped slightly into her chair, and she goes as far as to close her eyes briefly, her hands leaving the table to join over her laps. Olivia uses this moment to sit down in front of her, sitting at the very edge of her seat as she leans forward over the table, both her arms resting on the cold surface. The undersides of her sleeves are soaked with dried blood; she had used her arms to cover her face.

She stares at the woman who had raised her for so many years, a very painful mask of mixed emotions displayed on her face, now, having apparently decided to drop the act at last. Maybe she was simply unable to keep it up.

Peter recognizes that face all too well, her eyes screaming a hundred questions, but in the end, it goes down to: _'How could you?' _and _'Why?'_

She had given him that same look, once, in another timeline, or perhaps had it been in another life, he isn't sure of anything anymore. He realizes then that who she is giving this look to doesn't matter. Being the direct recipient and the one responsible for so much hurt had been unbearable, but in that instant, watching her pour her soul out through glistening green eyes is just as heartbreaking.

In the end, Olivia settles for neither question. The words she whispers instead are even worse.

"I trusted you."

Nina slowly raises her head again and reopens her eyes to meet her tearful eyes. "I can explain," she says, and Peter had never heard this particular woman sounding so dreary, almost weakened.

"I don't need another one of your _excuses_," Olivia replies harshly, though her voice is still hardly louder than a whisper, one of her hands leaving the table as she holds it out in front of her, palm up. "I know everything, Nina. Jones told me how most of his _plans_ would never have worked if it hadn't been for your precious help."

"If you would just listen-" Nina attempts again, but Olivia's palm falls back down, forcefully, slamming the metallic surface of the table.

"I won't listen to another word from you," she almost spits out, pushing herself away from the table and falling back into her chair, her hand once again raised in front of her. "You sat there with me. You listened to me talk about migraines you were inflicting me, giving me treatments that were really poisoning me." She's shaking her head hard now. "You drugged me. I loved you, and trusted you. And you stabbed me in the back. Or should I say in the back of the head, with a needle."

"Listen to me Olivia, the only reason I did this is because I _love you_," Nina says vehemently, leaning over the table. "You were always so…_special_, extraordinary, truly. I had the chance to see it, first as a young child, and then more than anyone else, having you in my home for so many years. You have a gift. All I did was make it available to you once more, so you could fully shine again."

Olivia's hand is now up to her mouth, her fingers pressed hard against her lips, and she lets out a dark, throaty chuckle. When she drops her hand, she pinches her lips together, briefly closing her eyes, before staring back at Nina again. The raw emotions she was displaying a minute ago haven't gone anywhere, but they have morphed into something much more ominous.

"A gift, uh?" She repeats, in low voice. "Do you want to know how Jones died, today?"

Nina doesn't say anything, but the air is so charged with anticipation that Peter can almost hear it crackle, even through the glass. Olivia moves again, putting both her arms back on the table so that their faces come very close together.

"It worked, you know," she whispers, head tilted, face blank and eyes ablaze. "I'm fully 'active' again. And when I'm placed in a particularly stressful and upsetting situation like today…I react. And it wasn't a fire this time, Nina. And it isn't just Jones' blood all over my clothes; it's his _flesh_. I made him blow up, like a pack of meat left too long in a microwave. I guess not being completely stable on a molecular level becomes a bit of an unreliability when you mess around with a freak of nature like me."

As Nina stares at her, her shock and horror barely concealed from her face, Olivia pushes herself away from the table again, standing back up this time. "I don't ever want to have anything to do with you again." She says in her darkest tone. "If I hear you've as much as tried to come near Rachel or Ella, I swear I'll make you burn. And since you know me _so well_, having had me in your home for so many years, you know just how much I mean it."

And on these words, she nothing short of flees the room.

In the wake of witnessing such a scene, it takes Peter a few seconds to shake off the odd numbness that has taken over his body. It takes him a second too long. As soon as he snaps out of it, he makes for the door, knowing that Olivia will not be okay, and everything in him urges him to be there for her, to offer her whatever she needs him to be in that moment.

Indeed, when he goes out into the hall, she's standing farther away in the distance, having obviously tried to walk away from the interrogation room. She's pacing the way she always does, a hand back up to her face, stubbornly trying to keep it together. But she's not alone in hall.

Peter watches as Lincoln Lee approaches her; it is clear that the other man had been waiting for her to come out. He had been waiting to offer her that comfort Peter used to be the one giving her.

Even if he ran, Peter would never reach her first.

And why would he even try, anyway?

A cold that is becoming quite familiar spreads within him, his movements frozen as he watches Lincoln walks towards Olivia. It is a cold that always follows these fleeting instants when Peter forgets, even for a second, where he is and where he's not. At times, it is so easy to lose himself in his heart's pretense, especially when Olivia, this Olivia, resembles _his_ so much.

She looks too much like her, tonight, and because of this, his lapse of judgment has lasted longer than usual. It makes his return to reality that much more painful.

He has no right to feel jealous or resentful towards Lincoln in any way –especially when he has _helped_ the guy gained Olivia's trust in the first place, but he's too tired and shaken tonight, and he misses her too much to be reasonable. That is why he turns around and walk away, averting his eyes from the scene before he can see Lincoln reach the place where Olivia is pacing, deciding he can spare himself the sight.

As soon as he finds himself standing outside in the cold winter air, though, he remembers that he doesn't have a car to get home; Olivia had picked him up what seems to be a lifetime ago. Despite the intensity of the cold, he hardly moves, letting its icy claws sharpen his mind and clear his head, the physical frost almost matching the one still freezing his insides. There is nothing more he could have done, anyway, he keeps telling himself. He has fought the physical battle with her, the way he always will, but the rest does not concern him.

He is just coming to the conclusion that he should call a cab when he feels her. There really is no better way to put it. He instinctively turns around to see her emerge from the building, as she's weakly putting her coat on. He's surprised to see her; he honestly expected her to stay with Lincoln for a while. As he scans her face, though, surprise changes into understanding and aching concern.

She has retreated within herself again, that much is obvious, her eyes almost vacant now. It takes her a few seconds to realize he's standing there, mere feet away from her, and her gaze gains some focus as she wraps her coat tightly around her body. Now seeing her up close, he notices she's shaking, not so faintly.

"I thought you'd gone home a while ago," she says.

Her voice doesn't sound suspicious or wary. If Peter were honest with himself, he would admit that it hadn't been in a while. The truth is, she's been much warmer to him, lately. She has even gone as far as to admit that she liked working with him, and he knows she appreciates his insight on things he has seen before, and that have yet to happen here. She seems to rely on him even more since her Cortexiphan abilities have started to manifest themselves and it has come to light that Peter knows a lot about that, too.

Nothing he has told her about her abilities could have prepared her for what happened today, though. None of them was prepared for this, and that's surely part of the reason why they are both so shaken, and will be for a while.

"I just left the building, too," he admits softly, still studying her quietly. "I was about to call a cab."

The way she's looking at him is a bit odd, even though he cannot tell _what _exactly is odd in her stare. All he knows is that it's not the first time she's giving him that kind of look, lately.

What he also knows right away is that she has somehow understood that he was in there to witness her 'talk' with Nina. She won't comment on it, though, in the hope that he maybe wasn't. Undoubtedly feeling more exposed than she likes, she averts her eyes, her gaze getting blurry again.

Before he can stop himself, he hears himself asks: "Where's Lincoln?"

He could have slapped himself for uttering these words. Olivia merely shrugs at his question, though, her eyes still down as she hugs herself tighter. "He stayed inside. He offered to take care of…all the paperwork."

The rims of her eyes are red. She looks too small and vulnerable, and in way too much pain. Looking at her standing outside that way, with all these evident signs of her battles and of that brutal betrayal displayed all over face and body language, Peter is filled with another strong feeling of déjà-vu. He never used to get those, before. But ever since he has ended up here, the sensation is almost constant.

At that instant, it suddenly becomes clear why this seems so familiar, why she looks so much like his Olivia.

In his timeline, he has seen her being hurt the same way, has watched as she was being overwhelmed with that sense of inevitability, mere days after meeting her, in the aftermath of John's death. It had been there all over again months later, after she'd had to kill a shapeshifter who had stolen her partner's identity and life.

And of course, it had been there in the wake of his involuntary betrayal, scarring his heart in an indelible way, in a way that still now leads him to think _'never again'_.

The fact that she had never been hurt like this before had been part of what had made this Olivia so inexplicably different, in little ways he hadn't really been able to explain before. But he sees it, now, he sees what has gone from her eyes.

Just like his Olivia, she has lost the desire to trust.

Because her trust has just been broken, ruthlessly, and she has been left unbalanced and exposed. It is in moments like this one that his certainty about being in the wrong place weavers, when absolutely everything in her, from the way she remains on her feet despite the pain, to the expressions that crosses her face in subtle ways he knows too well, makes him feel like he's right where he's supposed to be.

_Never again_, he reminds himself.

But as if she's hearing his thoughts, Olivia looks back at him then, and her eyes remains a bit too intense. A shiver shoots down his spine.

"Why do you need a cab?" She asks him, as if she has just realized what he had said a moment ago.

"You picked me up today," he reminds her with a soft smile. "And I'm a bit too worn out to walk all the way back there." He immediately feels like an idiot for mentioning his exhaustion when she's in such a poor state, both physically and emotionally, but she doesn't seem to care.

She actually keeps on staring at him, before shaking her head a little. "No need for a cab, I'll drive you."

But it's his turn to shake his head. "Nonsense. You need to get home, Olivia, don't worry about me, I'll be fine." Actually, he had really wanted to ask her to let _him _drive her home, but he knows what kind of answer he would get.

She has averted her eyes again, her face slightly constricted as she admits: "Honestly, I'm not in any hurry to get back to my place. Broyles said he'll send a few people over there tomorrow, to find and get rid of all the bugs and cameras planted in my apartment."

He wants to shake himself hard again, for being so slow right now, having briefly forgotten about that part, about the video Jones had shown them to prove his words about Nina's involvement.

Olivia hasn't forgotten.

To her, it must feel like her entire world has just been turned upside down, and even her home doesn't feel safe anymore, traces of Nina's deception all over the place.

_She's everywhere.  
><em>  
>The memory of her voice rings suddenly in his head, and it's not only shivers that break through his body but goose bumps as well, especially when she meets his eyes again and seems to know exactly what is going through his mind.<p>

But it's impossible.

_It's impossible_. That's what he keeps on telling himself every time she says something she shouldn't know, claiming then upon seeing his confusion that she has simply read it in his debrief, or that he's told her about it at some point during the last few weeks. Dismissing these troubling moments is the best thing to do, especially now that he is so close to get the Machine to work and bring him home. Admittedly, his obsession has calmed down quite dramatically in the past two weeks despite the excellent progress Walter and he had made, but he had told himself that it was because he didn't want to leave until Olivia was able to deal with her abilities on her own, and until Jones was stopped for good.

Jones has just been stopped, quite efficiently and permanently. He should feel eager to get back to work on the Machine, now. But all he thinks about is Walter's grip earlier today, when he had clasped Peter's face in his hands.

And now, he is once more shaken with uncertainty as he holds Olivia's strange gaze, and almost lets himself think _what if…_

But he shrugs his shoulders a bit stiffly, as if trying to fight the cold winter air, when he's really just trying to shake off these unreasonable thoughts from his mind. Eventually, he nods his head at her.

"Alright, you can take me home," he agrees, before adding: "But at one condition." She gives him a suspicious look, to which he answers with the tiniest smile. "You let me drive."

He makes sure to keep his voice low and quiet, almost informal, as if he was dealing with a wild, scared animal…which in some ways, he is.

Despite his best efforts, her entire body tenses up slightly, and she then obviously tries to hold herself straighter. "I can still drive."

"I know you can," he says softly, not in the least surprised by her reply. "This has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. I would just feel much less useless if I was the one driving."

They stare at each other for another endless moment, and he can tell she's fighting hard against her pride and exhaustion. In return, he simply offers her his most honest look of concern. When her shoulders eventually slump and she lets out a defeated sigh, he knows her pride has just lost that round.

"Fine," she agrees weakly, a hand already in her coat's pocket to retrieve her keys.

When she hands them out to him, he instantly notices the strong tremors shaking her fingers, fingers that are still tinted with traces of dried blood. She notices too, and quickly buries her hands back in her pockets, before turning away and starting to walk towards where she has parked her car, holding on to her last bit of dignity by leading the way.

She's asleep barely five minutes after he starts driving.

At first, he tries not to look at her, only throwing furtive glances her way, taking in the way she's positioned herself against the door, using her arm as pillow, her uninjured cheek pressed into the fabric of her coat.

By the time he's nearing his house, he's staring every time he stops at a red light.

His eyes always fall back on the ugly gash on her left cheek; he knows the paramedics have tried to clean it up, but it's clear she hasn't allowed them to do much more than putting some antiseptic on it –letting them stitch the skin back together would have been a good idea, for example. It looks like it's starting to close itself up, the blood no longer oozing out, but enough of it has trickled down her cheek. If she doesn't do anything about it soon, she's likely to get both an infection and bad scar. After studying the cut, his eyes then always move downward. Even though her blood-stained shirt is now hidden beneath her coat, enough of _Jones'_ remains visible on her skin, especially with her neck exposed the way it is now.

He has just taken the wise decision that he should not let her out of his sight until she's let him take care of that wound when a car honks behind him, unhappily, letting him know that the light has turned green a few moments ago.

He gently shakes her awake once he's parked in front of his house, fighting his instinct to spend a few more minutes –hours- watching her sleep. As he expected, the touch of his hand on her shoulder is enough to cause her to jerk awake almost in a panic, looking distressed and alarmed.

"It's okay, Olivia, you fell asleep," he tells her calmly, reluctantly moving his hand away, as well as his eyes, giving her a few moments to compose herself.

Having turned the engine off, silence is thick in the car. When he eventually looks back at her, she's staring at her hands, which are still trembling slightly as they lay on her laps. He's park right next to a street lamp, which allows them both to see more than they want to.

"Are you okay?" he asks her softly, even though it's obvious that she's not.

She shakes her head almost imperceptibly, finally raising her head to look at him, and once again, his insides almost quiver, troubled on so many level by the nature of her gaze, even though he's still unable to explain what confounds him so much.

"I'm…very confused," she admits then, and truth be told, she does sound a bit vague, as if her mind was elsewhere.

He's not exactly sure what kind of confusion she's talking about, but he chooses the most logical explanation. "Given the circumstances, that's understandable." And after pausing, he adds: "You're gonna be fine, Olivia."

She turns her eyes away, briefly bringing a trembling hand up to her face to wipe her nose. Her fingers then tentatively reach out for her injured cheek, as if she was only remembering now that the cut was there, and she takes a sharp intake of air as her fingertips graze the raw flesh.

"Why don't you come inside," he offers, still careful not to offend her. "I could take care of that wound for you. Plus, I've got whiskey, and I know you could definitely use some right about now."

Part of him hopes that she will shut him down, now, something she should have done when they were standing outside the federal building, when she finally remembers who he is, and how they're not supposed to act that way around each other. She should have let him take that cab and driven herself home, and he should have let her be. He should get out of her car now, and let her take the wheel and drive away, instead of inviting her inside his house to _drink_ when he doesn't even feel fully in control of his actions right now.

When their eyes meet again, he's pretty sure something similar is going through her mind. She's going to shut him down any second now, and it will be for the best.

But she smiles instead, the smallest of smile; there is something definitely sad in the tiny curve of her lips, but the look she gives him then as she opens her door is almost _k__nowing_. "It's a bit presumptuous of you, but alright. I could definitely use some alcohol."

Leaving Peter once again more than a little confused, Olivia escapes the car.

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><p><em>TBC...<em>

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><p><strong>AN:** The second part is heavy P/O. Heavy as in 'and there shall be smutty' à la Fringe 4x12. And I'm not just saying that because I would love some reviews ;p


	2. Fallen Warrior, Part 2

**A/N:** As promised, I'm posting the rest of this story today :) Thank you so much to those of you who reviewed, it was much appreciated! Thank you to my quiet readers as well, there were quite a lot of you, I hope you've stayed tuned for part 2 :D

You may have noticed that this is rated M. You know what that means, though it's safe to say it's a soft M. If I could, I would rate it 'S', like the latest episode was, but you'll see what I mean ;)

Enjoy, I hope!

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><p><strong>FALLEN WARRIOR<strong>

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><p><strong>PART 22**

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><p>All traces of a smile have gone from Olivia's face by the time they enter his house and they take off their coats. He takes hers and drops it with his on the couch; when he turns around, his movements freeze again as he stares at her, a painful lump already forming at the base of his throat.<p>

Without the cover of her coat, her blood-stained shirt is fully visible again, and she's staring at the sleeves, her face drained of all color.

"You know, I've come to term with the fact that killing people is part of my job," she says then after a very long minute of silence. Her voice is low, as if she's hoping it would conceal the tremors in her words. "I know that pulling the trigger save other people's lives, along with mine. And I know that most of these people deserved it, though it doesn't exactly make it excusable, to be honest. But it's part of the job. This, though…" She has turned her trembling hands over, palms up, staring at the blood, her face constricted with pain as she shakes her head_. _"What kind of freak makes someone _blow up_ with the force of their mind?"

The lump has turned into a rock, now, the ache in his heart too familiar, and he instinctively starts walking slowly towards her. "Olivia…" he calls her name softly, and she raises her head, as if just remembering now that he was in the room.

When their eyes meet, hers filled with tears, her nostrils flare, and she shakes her head again. "I was doing fine without this, Peter," she whispers. "In some ways, I can see a few advantages in being able to cross over, or diffuse bombs with my mind, but killing people? Like this?" She's shaking her head again, her eyes wild and her breathing shallow, not really looking at him anymore. "There will never be anything 'extraordinary' in being able to do this kind of thing."

He has reached her now, his heart beating painfully fast within his ribcage, filled with a well-known and unbearable feeling of hopelessness that has taken hold of him on more than one occasion. He wishes he could make her see what he sees, make her see beyond her stubborn insecurities so that she would realize that what is extraordinary about her is not the abilities the Cortexiphan in her brain has given her.

"These abilities don't define you, Olivia," he tells her softly, and again, she looks too small and hurt, standing there before him with all her defenses down, glistening green eyes almost pleading him.

He cannot help himself. His hand comes up, his fingers brushing the skin of her uninjured cheek, not quite cupping it in his palm, not daring to cross that line; he knows it is a dangerous game he's playing. He pushes one of the long strands of hair that have escaped from her messy bun, tucking it behind her ear, another familiar gesture to him.

"What you did today…it was independent of your control." He reassures her in a quiet voice. "Your body protected itself. You and I both know you would never do this consciously, and the fact that you care so much, when you're the one who's been so hurt…this is what makes you extraordinary."

The moment is suspended, their faces closer than he remembers them being a second ago, his fingertips now resting on her jaw, and her eyes are swallowing him whole.

"Peter…" she breathes out, and she's so close that he feels the rush of his own name on his lips.

She's too close.

He pulls away, almost abruptly, taking a step back as his hand falls back at his side. "We really should take care of that wound."

Olivia barely seems to register his words, her gaze distant and blurry again, as if lost somewhere.

"I'll go get the kit," he says, thought he doesn't move right away, staring at her, once more filled with too many conflicting feelings.

She seems to snap out of it, then, meeting his eyes and offering him one of her famous fake smiles. "Right," she nods her head, staring at him without blinking.

He almost runs up the stairs. On his way to the bathroom, he mentally reprimands himself sternly for his behavior, even though his pounding heart makes it hard for him to refocus really efficiently. He keeps his attention fixed on what needs to be done, now, getting all the supplies he needs from the cupboard over the sink, whatever he can use to clean her face and tend her cut.

Arms full, he turns to leave the room, and is more than a little startled when he realizes Olivia is standing right there in the doorway.

After swearing very elegantly and spilling quite a good amount of warm water all over himself, his heart racing again, he instantly notices that Olivia has hardly reacted to his surprise, once again looking like she's neither here nor there. He's starting to honestly worry about her. She has fallen a few times during her fight against Jones and his Shapeshifters, maybe she's got a concussion he wasn't aware of.

It is also possible that it has nothing to do with physical distress at all, but he's stubbornly ignoring the nudging feeling in his guts.

"Olivia?" He calls her out softly, not wanting to startle her.

She blinks, twice, and meets his eyes, instantly smiling softly, even though her whole demeanor is still tinted with sadness. "I was wondering if I could borrow one of your shirts."

"One of my…" he shakes his head, as if it could help him shake off his renewed and aggravating confusion. "Sorry?"

The smile is gone, and she has averted her eyes again. "I'm just…I would really like to change into something that isn't soaked with blood…"

Of course. Shirt. Blood. He's starting to question if he isn't the one with a concussion.

"Sure," he says, his voice a bit hoarse, putting his supplies back down onto the sink. "I'll get you something."

He passes her in the doorway and walks to his room. This time, he's acutely aware of the fact that she's following him in there, and to say that his nerves are raw would be a bit of an understatement. He makes a point _not_ to look at her as he walks into the room and to his dresser, swiftly opening a drawer to pull out a shirt. He takes his time, though, giving himself the illusion that if he appears calm and composed, he would actually get a grip on himself. But Olivia seems decided on giving him mini-strokes tonight.

When he turns around once more, shirt in his hands, Olivia is already undressing.

Needless to say he could have dropped the shirt at the sight, if his fingers hadn't instinctively clenched around the fabric. Unsurprisingly, Olivia doesn't even seem fully aware of the fact that he's in the room with her while she's unbuttoning what's left of her buttons, her eyes slowly travelling over the walls, as if taking them in. Peter stares, watching as more and more of her pale skin appears between the hems of her shirt, revealing what is undoubtedly a black bra. He knows he needs to turn around and avert his eyes, but it's incredibly hard to do anything but look.

And it's ridiculous, really. He's seen her doing this very thing more times than he can remember, long before he had become the one taking each piece of clothing off of her. He has seen her without any clothes at all, felt her naked skin against his own in this very place, watched it turn from pale to rosy under his touch…and it is exactly why the sight of her undressing is suddenly so mesmerizing.

He misses her, in every way someone can be missed, and this is excruciating.

She's done with the last button and has started getting the whole thing off her by the time Peter snaps out of his own trance and swiftly spins around, cursing himself in several languages. Swallowing with some difficulty, he holds out the shirt behind him.

"Here," he tells her, and his voice is definitely hoarse now. He stands there with his arm held out for the longest time; he's starting to wonder if he's going to have to look at her again when he feels the shirt slip from his fingers, pulled by another hand. He makes himself count to a hundred before he allows himself a peak, facing her again when he sees it's safe.

She has actually sat down on the edge of his bed, her hair now falling freely over her shoulder and back, the blond matted with dark patches. His pale blue shirt is too big for her, revealing more of her collarbone than should be allowed, and her hands are still mostly buried inside the long sleeves, as they rest on her laps. _It always looks too big on her_, he thinks briefly, unable to shake away this other, intense déjà vu.

But his concern for her takes over any other inappropriate thought, taking in her slightly shivering form and the heartbreaking expression on her face as she keeps on staring in the distance. It's becoming obvious that she's experiencing some kind of aftershock, and he wonders briefly if he should call Walter and ask him if the extensive use of her abilities today could be responsible for her state. The idea falls flat when he remembers that the old man is still heavily sedated for the rest of the night. It could also very well be the realization of what Nina has done to her finally hitting her.

He approaches her slowly, and speaks to her in a gentle voice he usually uses with Walter. "Do you want to go back downstairs to take care of your wound?"

She raises her eyes. And simply stares. She's staring at him as if doing it will offer her some kind of answer. All it manages to do on his side is to cause more shivers to travel under his skin.

"Olivia?" He calls her out softly again, his heart back to beating too loudly against his ears.

She eventually shakes her head, still refusing to blink. "Here's fine," she says in a murmur.

_Here's really not fine,_ is what Peter instantly thinks.

Olivia is sitting on his bed, wearing one of his shirts, apparently decided on bearing into his soul with the simple force of her eyes. This is more than a feeling of déjà-vu; it _has_ happened before.

For what feels like the thousandth time of the hour, he forces himself to move. Moving is good. Moving is less confusing than spending the rest of the night holding her gaze, letting the strangest kind of emotion slowly fill his every cell.

"I'll be right back," he mutters as he escapes the room, breaking free from the emerald prison she was trapping him into.

He's vaguely aware of the fact that his own hands are shaking faintly has a picks up the supplies from the bathroom, and he makes himself take a few deep breaths, eyes closed, as he gets more warm water. Ignoring the relentless and nudging feeling in his guts telling him that he knows exactly what might be happening here is becoming harder by the minute. But he is fighting a good fight.

All of his fine efforts almost shatter completely when he makes it back to the bedroom.

Olivia hasn't moved from the bed, but she has moved slightly. Her right hand has come up, fist closed around the hem of the sleeve; her wrist pressed against her good cheek, she has buried her nose into the fabric. Eyes still opened, her face is now distorted with an intense expression of pain, as she slowly breathes in.

Except that she's not _breathing in_, he corrects himself as he stands there, swallowing a bit convulsively. There is absolutely no reasons whatsoever why this Olivia should now be breathing in the scent of his shirt with that kind of look on her face. Instead, it is safer to assume that she has reached that point when it's becoming too hard for her to contain the pain of what she's been through today, and she's doing her best not to break down.

Slightly comforted by his own explanation, Peter sets himself into motion again, walking into the room and sitting next to her on the bed, putting the supplies down as well. As he had hoped, the movements cause Olivia to refocus again. She turns her head towards him, and when he briefly raises his eyes from what he's doing, getting some antiseptic on a piece of cotton, he's not surprised to notice that her eyes have welled up with tears. He forces his eyes back down, though, because the sight of her tears is one of his greatest weaknesses.

He has to look at her in order to work on that cut, though, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the bloody gash as he brings his hands to her face, the pads of his fingers sinking lightly into the skin of her jaw, gently changing the angle. "It might sting a bit," he warns her before he starts cleaning up the wound.

She does tense a little every time he touches the raw flesh, but once again, she seems more at ease than she should be, sitting so close to him with both his hands on her face.

He works quietly, concentrating solely on cleaning the cut as neatly and painlessly as possible. He finds the silence somewhat soothing, a feeling he appreciates after the few head rushes he has experienced tonight.

He's about ready to start stitching the skin back together when Olivia speaks, in a soft whisper:

"You're good at that."

Another memory instantly flashes in his mind, fleetingly remembering her sitting in a hospital bed; she had looked quite battered up then, too. He had been telling her about how his mother had taught him that he should always take care of the people he cared about.

Olivia had said these words to him one other time.

_"__Na einai kalytero anthropo apo ton patera toy__."_

_Be a better man than your father._

That phrase had always held such a special meaning between him and his mother, and in more than one way, it had also weaved itself in his relationship with Olivia. She had come back from the dead to tell him these words. And when all of his illusions had shattered, when he had found himself tricked and conned, that phrase had been his way of knowing for sure that the Olivia standing in front of him in that Northwestern shirt wasn't his Olivia.

Olivia had asked him once, in the dark of night, as they'd laid spent a sated in her bed. She had asked him, almost casually, how he had finally realized her Alternate wasn't who he thought she was.

_"Na e__inai kalytero anthropo apo ton patera toy..__." _he had eventually whispered against the back of her neck. "_She had no idea what it meant…"_

She had turned around in his arms to face him, then, hearing the self-loathing in his quiet words, and feeling it in the way his body had tensed around hers. She had never asked him to stop beating himself up for his mistakes, and never would, even though he knew she wanted him to; she knew that to him, time might be the only thing that would ever exempt him of his sins.

She had rested her head close to his on their shared pillow, bringing a hand up to thread her fingers through his slightly damp hair. And even in the darkness of her room, he had read in her eyes that she remembered exactly when they had exchanged these words, and she remembered their meaning perfectly as well.

It was with the softest of smiles on her lips that she had brought her face to his, gently nuzzling his nose with hers, before murmuring against his lips:

_"Well, I still think you're good at that."_

And Peter had known right then that never again would he be fooled, because Olivia, _this_ Olivia, she was the only one who knew his heart.

Right now, sitting next to her on his bed, he does his best to push the memories away, fighting to remain in control of his emotions; he focuses back on the needle he's holding between his fingers, deciding that in this place and at this time, Olivia has simply whispered these words because of the way he's carefully tending her wound.

It really doesn't have to hold any deeper meaning.

"I lived with Walter for three years," he eventually says in a low voice, slowly starting to stitch, once he's made sure his fingers aren't trembling. "In more than one way, it's like being the parent of a very daring and careless child. A child who knows how to make LSD. I learned the hard way."

He actually feels her smile softly, the skin of her face stretching under his fingers. "I guess we had the same child," she tells him, just as quietly. "I had to stitch him up quite a few times, too, these past few years. He's been so much better since you've come back, though."

Silence falls back, then, and it feels thicker than it had been a minute ago. If possible. Peter is so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't even notice Olivia's odd choice of words.

It's always almost physically painful to him, to think about everything that has changed here, due to his lack of existence, despite the obvious similarities. But he has seen the way Olivia and Walter are together, now, and he would be lying if he said he didn't love to watch how patient and caring Olivia is around his father.

Around _Walter_, he corrects himself.

Before long, he's done with the stitching. He doesn't let go of her face, though. Instead, he picks up a piece of cloth, soaking it into the warm water. Still in silence, he then slowly and gently starts cleaning the remaining traces of grime and blood off her face, and she lets him proceed without any objection.

Once again, Olivia is the one who speaks next. "It was different the last time, wasn't it?" She's keeping her voice low, barely above a whisper, as if to preserve the quietude surrounding them.

He's working on the line of her jaw, now. He had never been able to study her face this close before; she has the exact same freckles, the same little scars. "What was?" He asks, even though he's almost sure he knows what she's referring to.

She's quiet for another long minute, but eventually, she answers. "Jones." There is another pause, and then she adds: "Nina."

Even whispered, the name quivers slightly as she says it, causing another painful squeeze within his chest. But he doesn't move his eyes up to hers, keeping his fingers and gaze on the soft skin of her face.

"Yes," he confirms. "And…no. Things were just…different."

When she speaks again, an endless moment later, her voice is barely audible. It sounds faraway, as if her mind has started to drift away once more. He had expected her to ask about these differences.

She doesn't.

"I wonder which one is worse," she says instead. "Betrayal from a lover, or from a mother."

At first, he is too distracted by the sharp pain he hears in her voice to realize what she has said right away. When he does, though, his movements finally stop, wet cloth stilling against her skin. He knows she's talking about Nina, but which '_lover'_ is she referencing to?

He finally brings his gaze up, his heart now back to trying to beat its way out of his throat. Her eyes have welled up with tears again, and her mind does seem to have gone somewhere far from here.

"I thought John's deception was the worst…but I don't know anymore…" she murmurs. "Maybe I was better off being completely motherless."

Peter is frozen, his frantic heartbeats affecting his breathing, now, as he tries to make sense of what she's saying. His bewilderment only worsens when he suddenly realizes what she has said, a minute ago.

_"It was different the last time, wasn't it?"_

She hadn't asked if it had been different in _his_ timeline, where he came from. She had asked him to confirm something she seems to know on some level, something that had happened to _her_ before.

_"He's been so much better since you've come back, though."_

_Since you've come back._

He's shivering again, he can tell that much, as the thought goes through him, and overwhelms him. She can feel his tremors, his fingers still on her face.

"John didn't betray you here," he says then, and his voice is more than slightly throaty.

He knows that for a fact. He has hacked into the FBI's files months ago, when he had wanted to catch up with what had or hadn't happened in this timeline. He remembers having to deal with a bunch of conflicting feelings upon reading that John Scott had died from the disease Walter had stopped the first time around, meaning that to Olivia, her lover had died _clean_, as a victim, never as a traitor.

What he is feeling now is so much more than just a few conflicting feelings. He is bewildered. There is _no way_ Olivia can know about John's betrayal; he has never written anything about it in his debrief, and they had never even mentioned John's name before tonight.

And yet, Olivia knows.

She moves then, her face turning in his hands until she's facing him, and his labored breathing briefly stops as he locks eyes with her.

"No, he didn't. Not here," she says softly. "But he did in another place, didn't he?" One of her hands comes up, then, almost tentatively, and she gently presses her palm upon his cheek. "I think you were there."

He sinks into her touch, unable to stop himself, and he lets out a shaky breath. "Olivia?"

"I'm…very confused," she repeats then, but her words take a whole new meaning at that instant.

Her beautiful face is once again constricted with the force of whatever emotions are causing her to feel so much pain, and her eyes do scream her confusion as they roam his face. And all Peter can do is sit there, numb, torn, her fingers burning his skin where they rest on his cheek.

"Things have started to feel…different, for a while now," she continues in a distressed whisper. "It has gotten even worse since my abilities have started coming back, and tonight, I don't know if it's because of what happened today but everything is just…" She closes her eyes, shaking her head, trying to convey what she is feeling. "I've been having all these dreams, but I think they're more than dreams, I think they're memories."

"Memories," he hears himself repeat, still frozen against her hand. How can she be having _memories_?

This doesn't make any sense at all.

He is beyond baffled and dazed, torn between aching hope and sickening fear, the fear that this is either all a dream or an illusion, like it once was.

_Never again,_ he had sworn himself, and above all, he had sworn Olivia, his Olivia, his home, the one he's been trying to go back to for _months_.

But when Olivia reopens her eyes, the Olivia he's still holding in his hands, nothing feels right and certain anymore, all of his conviction crumbling away as their eyes lock intensely. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that he hasn't been sure of anything in quite some time.

Her pupils are so dilated that the dark ring has swallowed most of the golden green of her irises; if he's feelings distraught, it is nothing compared to what she's clearly experiencing right now.

"I can't tell things apart anymore, Peter," she whispers almost in a panic, her fingers now digging almost painfully into his face. "Everything's a blur."

He fights hard against his numbness and his throbbing doubts, because no matter what, he cannot bear the sight of her in such distress. And there is also his pounding heart, begging him to listen to her and try and make sense of it all.

"What do you remember?" He asks as calmly as he can manage, looking firmly into her eyes to help her refocus, despite how shaky his entire being feels.

She shakes her head again, face distorted in anguish. "I don't know…I don't know what I'm supposed to remember or not, and right now, everything feels like…" she closes her eyes again, desperately grasping for words. "I can't explain it. It's more… I feel like all these feelings and emotions are coming back at once, and they're not even associated with anything clear yet." She reopens her eyes to look at him, then, and he recognizes the nature of the painful smile she offers him all too well, as she brings her second hand to his face, "All I know for sure is that being around you right now is a bit overwhelming." As she shakes her head again, tears begin to roll down her cheeks, the smile already gone. "But I also know you feel safe."

She has closed her eyes firmly again, losing her battle against the flow of emotions overpowering her, her hands leaving his face to grab his shirt in a death grip. "This is too much, Peter…" she chokes out, slumping against him, her face pressed against his neck, and he instinctively wraps her in his arms, still feeling mostly numbed, burying his nose into her hair.

He doesn't care about the blood, he doesn't care about the dirt, because underneath it all, she smells just like he remembers, she smells like his Olivia and god she feels just like her, too.

It feels like something is breaking inside of him, every inch of his being pleading for it to be real, and not just some other inexplicable Fringe event. He wants her to be his Olivia, had never wanted anything else with so much force before. But beneath his agonizing hope, his fears still refuse to quiet down and disappear.

Right now, he chooses to ignore them, though, as he focuses on the woman he loves no matter what, because she's crying against his skin, and maybe these tears are caused by the betrayal she's experienced today, or maybe they're caused by all these other betrayals that are coming back to her; even if she cannot quite remember them in details, he knows the burn, he knows the scar they leave on your heart like a branded seal.

_"Can you imagine being flooded with years of experiences and memories that were not your own? The mind… unable to distinguish between what's real and what is not."_

Walter's words keep on ringing in his head, feeding his hopes and fears at the same time as he holds her close. All he can do is rock her gently, murmuring words he hopes are soothing, the pain in his chest and throat indicating that he might be crying, too, and it doesn't matter much.

Even when her tears subside, eventually, he doesn't loosen his embrace, because she's still trembling in his arms, her body and mind beyond exhausted.

"Sleep, Olivia…" he murmurs in her ear, knowing that she is already halfway there. "Just sleep. You're safe, here," he repeats the words she has told him hoping to help her relax, also knowing that they are true.

As her body instantly gets heavier and heavier against him and she melts in his arms, fitting there perfectly, he feels her breath against his neck as she murmurs: "I know I am…"

Olivia falls asleep.

...

Peter dreams.

Every night, Peter dreams.

He dreams of her, soft eyes and gentle smiles, loving touch and comforting warmth. He dreams he's back home, with her, because she _is_ home. And for that one suspended instant, everything feels right again.

Peter is dreaming again. He dreams that Olivia is with him, in his bed, under the sheets, and at first, he doesn't question it. He always dreams of her.

Everything is dark, and everything is her, her bare skin under his palms, her warm body pressed upon his, and he feels her fingers travel over him, pulling at his shirt as she tries to get it off his skin.

Peter's certainty starts to weaver. His brain is hopeless, fogged with sleep and the unmistakable stirs of a fast growing desire.

She feels too real against him, he realizes then, feeling the shivers that ripple under the skin of her back as his fingers trace her spine. There is something else; she feels damp, but not from sweat, and her scent is fresh, clean, _his_. It occurs to him that the cool sensation he's been feeling against his neck is caused by her wet hair.

His grip on her instinctively tightens over her hipbones and she sighs, her face so close to his, her hands still busy trying to free more skin from his shirt.

"Olivia?" He almost chokes out her name, squinting his eyes through the darkness.

Focusing is nearly impossible. She's naked upon him, moving slowly over his numb body, effectively waking it up with every shift of her hips.

"Shhhh…" she murmurs against his lips; her fingers have settled under his shirt, fingernails gently raking over the tense muscles of his chest. "Raise your arms…"

He cannot do anything but obey, somehow still feeling like he's dreaming, letting her raise his arms over his head, telling himself that he's doing it solely to get his hands off her skin.

Unsurprisingly, she manages to get his shirt off him rather quickly. As soon as it is discarded somewhere in the darkness surrounding his bed, she leans over him again, her breasts pressing into the bare skin of his chest, and lets out a low groan, her lips hovering an inch away from his again, as strands of wet hair graze his face in a cool caress.

The room is not completely devoid of light, he realizes then; the timid glow streaming through his window is a dark blue, the unmistakable sign of a fast approaching dawn, wrapping them both in a soft ethereal cocoon.

_This is a dream_, he tells himself again, but every detail he feels with burning acuity tells him that it's not, cannot be. Even in this dim light, he can perfectly make out the dark line marking her cheek, the healing wound he has tended only hours ago. And it's all coming back to him, now, how she had fallen asleep in his arms, how he had carefully laid her down on his bed, and how he had settled down with her. He had thought he would spend the night doing nothing but stare at her in sheer disbelief.

It is quite obvious now that his own exhaustion had gotten the best of him at some point, causing him to fall into a slumber that had been deeper than any sleep he had gotten in weeks, his lungs filled with the scent of her hair with every breath he took. Apparently, he was sleeping so soundly that she had managed to escape his embrace, leave his room and slither back over him completely naked and still wet from her shower, without him even realizing it.

She moves without a moment respite upon him in a slow, slow dance, her warm breath burning the skin of his face, his whole body definitely awakened now, their bare chests meeting and rubbing continuously; he tries to convince himself that he should stop her, but his hands are back on her hips, and even if he's not encouraging her movements, he's definitely not stopping them either.

When her fingers decide to focus on unbuttoning his pants, though, and the mere presence of her hand over this particular area causes the warmth beneath his skin to expand quite dramatically, he does try and stop the rocking of her hips.

"We shouldn't…" he says, or rather stammers in a hoarse whisper that doesn't sound like his voice at all.

But she presses her lips to his, then, a butterfly kiss, truly, kissing his jaw next, more firmly, and he shivers forcefully when he feels the warmth of her breath against his ear. "It's okay, Peter…" she murmurs. "I remember, now…" And she brings her face back to his, leaning her forehead upon his as she says: "I remember you…"

When she kisses him again, her lips more fervent and demanding this time, more eager too, Peter is convinced that he is about to drown. He is going to drown in the implacable wave washing through him at the implication of her words, drown in the sheer relief consuming him against his will.

And he will drown in her, evidently, in the feel of her against him, his body moving of his own accord now, starting to meet her fever with vibrant intensity. His hands roam her shivering back, pressing his palms into her curves in a desperate attempt to bring her closer to him as he loses himself into her kiss, savoring a taste that hasn't changed at all.

By the time he manages to refocus enough to break away from her lips, he realizes that her sneaky fingers have made some serious progress when it comes to getting the rest of his clothes off him. Before he knows it, she has combined all of her efforts, and both pants and boxers are gone. When she pins herself to him once more, there is absolutely nothing separating them anymore, and the light around them briefly brightens as it floods his mind; their sighs and groans mingle, just like their limbs, and the profound craving he feels for her overcomes everything else. It has been so long, _so long_, and she's there in his arms, rippling over him, smoldering flesh and feverish eyes, claiming that she remembers him, now, _she remembers him_.

But no matter what, Peter is a scarred man, and he has to know, he cannot risk it, he has to know.

Grabbing her face in his hands, his fingers digging into her wet hair and feeling it drip upon his skin, he pulls her head away from his neck where she had been pressing heated kisses, bringing her face up to his to meet her gaze.

"How do I know for sure?" He murmurs, terrified of his own words, but he had promised her and he had promised himself.

_Never again._

Olivia leans down, then, slowly, moving her body and hips upon his in a way that leaves no doubt about what is about to happen next. And she presses her nose against his, letting her heaving breath scorch his lips before she whispers these words that shatter the last of his hesitancy: _"Na e__inai kalytero anthropo apo ton patera toy__, _Peter."

And with her next move, she descends upon him, joining not only their bodies but also their souls, sealing them back together, and Peter drowns.

He doesn't question it anymore, doesn't want to, doesn't need to.

All he needs is her, and the irrevocable feel of her, so comforting, entrancing and familiar as she sways over him, upon him, into him, and he meets her dance with equal fervor and adoration. One of his hands endlessly travel over the smooth skin of her back while the other remains buried in her hair, keeping her face close to his, so close. His body is breaking, each thrust of her hips sending throbbing heat through his core and far beyond, and his heart is thumping insanely beneath his ribs, his solace more powerful than anything else.

"Olivia…" he whispers her name again, but it isn't a plea for her to stop this time; it is a call full of gratitude and love, begging her to stay _here_, with him, to never go again.

And she knows, and she understands, her fingers curling in his hair, staring deep into his eyes as she rocks into him, carrying him home.

"I love you…" she whispers against his lips. She has grabbed one of his hands, bringing it up over his head, intertwining their fingers together, and he thinks he feels another kind of wetness fall upon his face. "Do you love me?"

Does he love her? He could have wept, too; and again, maybe he already is. It doesn't matter much. "I do…" he whispers back.

She's slithering over him again, and it is too much, and not nearly enough. "Then tell me…I wanna hear you say it."

There is no trace of doubt in her breathless voice, only a genuine desire to hear him say these words he should have said back months ago, before the Machine, before the Blank space of time when they had briefly lost sight of each other. With the next slow thrust of her hips, he sits himself back up, wrapping her in his arms as she cups his jaw in her hands, nothing but an inch of heated air separating their faces.

"I love you." Peter murmurs the sentiment against her lips, screams it with his eyes, proves it in the way he holds her tight.

Above all, he _feels _it in the way he is now complete again, after being broken for months, and he knows she feels it too.

Because Olivia smiles, then, and he thinks she's never been more beautiful, and she's never felt so heavenly.

In the growing light of dawn, every detail of her sharpens; her face is still covered with bruises and cuts, but these dark marks on the rosy, glistening skin of her cheeks are not imperfections.

They are evidences of the battles she has fought, of the betrayals she has endured, undeniable proofs that she will keep on fighting, no matter what. She might have fallen, a mere day ago, but resembling the phoenix coming back from the ashes, the fallen warrior always stands back up on her feet, fierce and strong.

_My home._

They dance and move in ways that were never completely forgotten, slick skin and longing sighs, her back soon pressed hard upon the mattress as he melts into her, his face buried into her neck, and his fingers grasp hers again, pinning their joined hands upon the pillow, pledging to never let her go again if she holds on to him, too.

And as they merge into one another, slowly, perfectly, beautifully, the sun keeps on rising in a world just outside their own.

A world that is once more full of promise.

* * *

><p><strong>FIN<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Writing this took many, _many_ hours, as well as most of my heart and brain. Reviews would most definitely be loved :')


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